The 504 King streetcar is Toronto’s busiest surface route, moving 60,000 passengers a day, often at a pace that is slower than I can walk.

So what does the city do? It make things worse.

On Thursday at 10 a.m., on city orders, the Toronto Transit Commission rerouted the King streetcar to make way for a Toronto International Film Festival street party.

Until Monday morning, the King car eastbound will divert up Spadina Avenue to Queen, along Queen to Church Street, and then back down onto King. Westbound, streetcars will turn up York Street to Queen and down Spadina to King.

“It was a City of Toronto decision,” Brad Ross, a TTC spokesman, said Thursday. “The decision to affect rush hour [Thursday] and [Friday] was not one the TTC supported. It will impact the entire King line, plus Spadina, Queen and Church. We voiced our concern. Give yourself some extra time.”

Steve Buckley, general manager of transportation at the city, says police, economic development officials, the TTC, TIFF, the film office and his office all agreed together to shut King to all cars and streetcars for four days. Asked whether the TTC objected, he said, “That is not our recollection.”

“On opening weekend the crowds [at TIFF] have grown so large that we have had legitimate public safety concerns along that stretch of King,” Mr. Buckley said. “If managing crowds becomes an issue, we all bend, because, first and foremost, of public safety.”

On an eastbound King car at Spadina at 1:30 p.m., the driver explained at length why he was turning — most riders got off — before the streetcar headed up Spadina and stopped just south of Queen. It sat motionless for 10 minutes.

“Excuse me, are we moving?” a woman asked the driver.

“It doesn’t look like it, does it?” he replied.

“Well, you don’t have to be smart about it,” replied the woman, sitting down. (Turns out traffic lights were out at Queen and Spadina, snarling that intersection).

She works in a homeless shelter; the streetcar rerouting delayed her arrival at a conflict resolution workshop at Fred Victor Centre.

“It’s a great day for walking. I thought I would get there quicker on the streetcar,” she said.

Asked whether she attends the film fest, she held up a free daily with the headline “A Hefty Price for the Buzz at TIFF,” noting that festival tickets cost $24 each. “I don’t have that type of money,” she said.

The streetcar took half an hour to get from Spadina and King to city hall; I can walk that distance in half the time.

The situation was no better at rush hour for Ankit Agrawal, a consultant with CIBC who works on Bay Street and recently moved into a condo at King and Shaw Streets.

“For people like us who have recently moved downtown, it’s pretty nightmarish and chaotic because of a lack of information,” he said. “I was looking for a streetcar. There is no one from the TTC down there.”

Carol Dee, a waitress, waited beside him.

“The Queen car is a nightmare to begin with,” she said.

Just then, six streetcars in a row showed up; the diversion means King and Queen cars have to share the Queen tracks through the core.

Ms. Dee and Mr. Agrawal got on the third of the six.

“That one’s not too crowded,” she said. “I only have to be up two peoples’ armpits.”

During the film festival last year, Mr. Ross noted, the city closed King west to automobiles but let streetcars through. What is wrong with that?

Not long ago I shopped at the kunstmarket, the Christmas market, in Alexanderplatz, in Berlin. The square was off-limits to cars. A lone musician played on an Andean flute, the haunting strains wafting through the bustling crowds. At intervals, a streetcar would glide up, ringing its bell; the crowds would part as if in a ballet.

Streetcars are among Toronto’s most iconic features. They also help us get around. This rerouting not only delays thousands of commuters, it is also a mistake on cinematic grounds.

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